Tell them we are checking out their women.big dealIt's the goats they care about.You never see a farking Yemeni tossing acid in his goat's face.They love their goats too much.Way too much, if you know what I mean.And I mean they fark goats a lot.

The Yemeni people are the least-arrogant Arabic peoples, and it's a lovely country, but unfortunately it's a terribly dysfunctional one. They're very poor, and have almost no resources other than a small amount of oil that's dwindling. They used to have a healthy agricultural base and could feed themselves fairly well, but now almost all the agriculture has switched from growing food or coffee or cash crops to growing ghat, to which almost the entire country is addicted and spends most of their meager earnings (averaging 30%) on ghat. It's a unique plant because it's chewed fresh, meaning that people pay premium for freshly-picked leaves, and it also uses huge amounts of water to grow.

They have one of the highest birth rates in the world and one of the most corrupt and inept governments in the world. The central government has never really controlled the majority of the country, outside the urban areas, in the last 50 years; tribal alliances have always kept it a patchwork quilt of influence, and even the Ottoman Empire was never able to control it. The British succeeded in controlling the southern part for a long time, but that required huge amounts of resources in negotiating with the tribes to maintain their allegiance. The southern part of the country has a strong secessionist movement and a lot of nostalgia for the British colonial era, and they've always been culturally distinct from the north. Their country was almost entirely consumed for over 20 years in a civil war that was a proxy fight between Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Most of the young men started migrating to Saudi for work in the late 1970s during the oil boom, which decimated the most vibrant core of the economy. Saudis treat Yemenis like total crap, and don't like them because there's a strong Shia strain in the local religion.

Note the lack of strikes in Canada, Germany, the UK, and other places where psychotic extremists plot to kill people based on their lack of belief in the Muslim faith.

Either you can take care of the extremists, or we can. Since you won't, we will.

For every extremist we kill with this method, how many do we create via collateral damage? If these strikes kill civilians as well as the intended targets, and it appears certain that they do, how can we claim to be morally superior?

Huggermugger:The Yemeni people are the least-arrogant Arabic peoples, and it's a lovely country, but unfortunately it's a terribly dysfunctional one. They're very poor, and have almost no resources other than a small amount of oil that's dwindling. They used to have a healthy agricultural base and could feed themselves fairly well, but now almost all the agriculture has switched from growing food or coffee or cash crops to growing ghat, to which almost the entire country is addicted and spends most of their meager earnings (averaging 30%) on ghat. It's a unique plant because it's chewed fresh, meaning that people pay premium for freshly-picked leaves, and it also uses huge amounts of water to grow.

They have one of the highest birth rates in the world and one of the most corrupt and inept governments in the world. The central government has never really controlled the majority of the country, outside the urban areas, in the last 50 years; tribal alliances have always kept it a patchwork quilt of influence, and even the Ottoman Empire was never able to control it. The British succeeded in controlling the southern part for a long time, but that required huge amounts of resources in negotiating with the tribes to maintain their allegiance. The southern part of the country has a strong secessionist movement and a lot of nostalgia for the British colonial era, and they've always been culturally distinct from the north. Their country was almost entirely consumed for over 20 years in a civil war that was a proxy fight between Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Most of the young men started migrating to Saudi for work in the late 1970s during the oil boom, which decimated the most vibrant core of the economy. Saudis treat Yemenis like total crap, and don't like them because there's a strong Shia strain in the local religion.

miniflea:For every extremist we kill with this method, how many do we create via collateral damage? If these strikes kill civilians as well as the intended targets, and it appears certain that they do, how can we claim to be morally superior?

You create none. You ramp up a given extremist's ability to exploit tragedy, but non-extremists don't get radicalised by reading the paper.

If motive is a consideration, then moral superiority belongs to those who target the bad guys, not an intentional high number of innocent for maximum effect. More points for doing all possible to minimise collateral damage. Extra Bonus Points for actually having the concept of preventing collateral damage.